{"title":"Law as hegemonic medium: how the state authors the people it claims to serve","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag009","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">Socio-legal scholarship asks how law regulates identities. It rarely asks where the foundational identity of constitutional democracy, the people itself, comes from. I argue that the people lives two distinct lives: as a democratic agent constituted through law, and as an imagined community. Drawing on sociological neo-institutionalism alongside Laclau and Mouffe’s, I show that the imagined community is an unstable settlement of a hegemonic struggle among popular imaginaries, within which the state occupies a structurally privileged position. Through the cases of Hungary, Czechia, and Ukraine, I demonstrate how law sustains constitutional orders whose formal inclusiveness coexists with substantive hegemonic closure.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Our ancient adolescent adversary system”","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag008","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">This article reconstructs the overlooked history of how the adversary system became part of American legal identity. Contrary to conventional accounts, it argues that although the conception of the adversary system as a defining and celebrated feature of American law originated in nineteenth-century legal thought, it was first adopted by the Supreme Court in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Watts v Indiana</span> (1949) and became widely established only after <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Gideon v Wainwright</span> (1963). Drawing on Supreme Court Justice papers, judicial opinions, legal commentary, and newspapers, it traces this development and situates it within the legacies of Nazism, Nuremberg, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Warren Court, and the law and order movement, revealing the historical contingency of American legal identity.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Automated private enforcement: evidence from the Google Fonts Case","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag006","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">Plaintiffs often lack incentive to enforce low-value claims, weakening defendants' compliance incentives. The Google Fonts Case offers a unique opportunity to explore whether automated private enforcement increases compliance. After a German court ruled that dynamically embedding Google Fonts violated the GDPR, an Austrian lawyer reportedly used automated tools to detect violations and threaten lawsuits. Using a difference-in-differences approach on a two-year sample of 1,517,429 websites across 32 countries, we find a significant compliance effect in Austria: non-compliance dropped by 22.7 percentage points within three months, a nearly 50% reduction. These findings suggest automated enforcement can be disruptive, pressuring policymakers to recalibrate legal rules.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mitigating the judicial human–AI fairness gap","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag007","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">Machine adjudication is perceived as less fair than human judging. We study whether hybrid procedures, in which a human consults an algorithmic recommendation but retains final authority, mitigate this human-AI fairness gap. In two experiments ($N = 7{,}651$), participants evaluate sentencing, bail, and arbitration decisions made by a human, an algorithm, or a human reviewing an algorithmic recommendation. The hybrid procedure eliminates the gap even when human scrutiny is minimal. The effect is complete among White and conservative participants but partial among Black liberals. Insensitivity to review intensity raises the risk of human-washing: nominal oversight may legitimize substantively flawed algorithmic processes.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is originalism orthodoxy?","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag001","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">What theory of constitutional interpretation has the Supreme Court followed? We search Supreme Court opinions for a wide range of sources that originalists identify as central to their methodology, over the entire universe of cases beginning in 1791. We find that for much of Supreme Court history, conventional indicators of originalist practice—citations to Founding-era sources—are largely absent, raising questions about originalism’s past orthodoxy. Originalist citation practices are absent for much of the 19th century and grow sharply in the late 20th century. The Article elaborates the implications of these findings for debates in constitutional law.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constitutionalism and majoritarianism reconciled","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag004","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">This paper defends the view that both constitutional provisions—norms that are not dependent on our choices—and statutory provisions—norms that are contingent on our choices—are necessary features of a liberal democracy. We make the case for <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">institution-dependent goods</span>, arguing that some goods depend for their existence on being produced by the right law-making institution with its own characteristic deliberative process. Hence, we conclude that individuals may sometimes have an interest (or even a right) that their legal rights be protected by a certain institution, say, the legislature, rather than another, say, the constitution, and vice versa.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"215 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Steering, subversion, and parents’ rights","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag005","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">Should parental rights block state efforts to influence parenting or frustrate parental goals? Using examples of public-school-opt-out denials and non-disclosure of a child’s gender expression as examples, I argue they should not. When parents harm children or society, governments may steer parents or subvert parental aims. The article considers and rejects claims that steering and subversion lack neutral justification, corrupt parental decision-making, facilitate abuse of state power, or undermine the values of intimacy and nurturing that parental rights are meant to protect. It also reframes parental rights as claim rights against state coercion, but as privileges against children.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AI for scaling legal reform: mapping and redacting racial covenants in Santa Clara County","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laaf005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laaf005","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">Legal reform can be challenging due to the volume, complexity, and interdependence of laws, codes, and records. One salient example is racially restrictive covenants. In 2021, California mandated that counties identify and redact such covenants, but implementation has proved challenging, with 84 million pages in Santa Clara County (SCC) alone. Through a partnership with SCC, we develop an open, accurate, and fast language model-based pipeline to solve this problem. Our model is deployable elsewhere with minimal resources, fundamentally altering the cost-benefit calculus of such policy reform. We estimate <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">one in three</span> SCC properties were subject to racial covenants in 1950.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Section 2 of the voting rights act and native representation","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag003","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">We have undertaken the first systematic, cross-state investigation of the relationship between Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and Native representation. Though it is not necessary for Native representation, Section 2 remains an important contributor. It also contributes to the packing of Native voters: safe Section 2 districts—in which Native voters constitute a majority—decrease Native influence in surrounding districts. We provide novel empirical support for a longstanding critique of Section 2’s focus on minority ability to <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">elect</span>, not their <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">influence</span>. Because Native communities have relatively small populations, the focus on electability can impose especially harsh trade-offs on influence.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What do we need from an account of lex talionis? A response to Lewis","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jla/laag002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/laag002","url":null,"abstract":"<span class=\"paragraphSection\">This paper is a response to Christopher Lewis’s recent paper on lex talionis. I claim that Lewis’s interpretation cannot answer some of the questions that it needs to. In particular, we need to understand what our fundamental motivation is for subscribing to a principle of proportionality in the first place. Facing this kind of question head on is the only way to rehabilitate the principle of lex talionis—if indeed, it merits rehabilitation.</span>","PeriodicalId":45189,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Legal Analysis","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149221478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}